storge
by Pencilwalla
Summary: Sharkbait friendship. Ryoga eats dinner with the newly reunited Tsukumos and misses his parents. [spoilers through 108]


"That's great," Ryoga said quietly. It was the third time he'd said it, or maybe the thirtieth; Yuuma was too excited to notice. He was still talking, non-stop, jumping up and down, waving his hands around in wide, inexplicable gestures.

Ryoga had lost the thread of the conversation long ago, his ears still ringing with Yuuma's first sentence: "My parents came back."

Back. From the Astral World. From death. Yuuma's parents had been saved.

How sick was it, how fucked up was he, Ryoga thought as he forced himself to look interested, that his first thought had been that it wasn't fair. How had he been forced to lose two sets (and it was two, he had not forgotten the first, the king and queen who'd raised him so long ago) of parents, and yet Yuuma didn't even have to lose one?

How sick was it that he couldn't be happy for Yuuma, when Yuuma ahd risked so much to help him. His life, Astral's life, everything – Yuuma had never hesitated to put it all on the line for him. He couldn't even say he'd always done the same. Yuuma deserved to have his parents back.

It was just…it was just…

"…tonight?"

"Huh?" He'd spaced out, and now Yuuma was frowning at him. He;d missed the question. "What?"

"You're gonna come have dinner, right? My parents want to meet you."

"Oh."

"I told them how cool you are," Yuuma added, and Ryoga winced. He hoped Yuuma had censored himself, just a little, since he didn't think 'ex-delinquent cheating rock alien warlord' was what parents looked for in their children's friends. He probably hadn't, though. Yuuma was horrible at lying.

"If you want."

"Great! Let's go!"

"It's not even three, Yuuma."

"But Shaaark," Yuuma whined, and he made a face that made Ryoga feel guilty and angry, and he let himself be dragged away from school and to the parking lot, so that he could drive Yuuma to his house. Hopefully his parents wouldn't be there.

Who was he kidding? His parents would probably be standing on the front porch glaring at him as soon as he pulled. He slammed on the helmet and drowned out Yuuma's voice with the roar of the engine as he pulled out of the lot and into the street.

His mother was out on the porch. She was pretty, with long hair and a nice smile, and he was forcibly reminded of his mother (mothers), who had held him and promised him things would be alright, right until they were crushed to death and killed by fever inches away from him. But he couldn't think about that now; he was certain that somehow Mirai Tsukumo could look at him and know he was being disgusting and selfish inside.

"Kaa-chan!" Yuuma leapt off the bike as he pulled to a stop, and Ryoga threw his helmet into the front seat and followed him. Mirai reached out and pulled Yuuma into a hug as he came near.

It had been years since he'd been hugged like that, and he had to look down as he approached because he knew his envy would show in his eyes.

"And you must be Ryoga."

He grunted in response, and both of them were ushered inside, where there were rice balls and cold drinks sitting out on the table. Yuuma's father was inside, stirring something on a pot in the kitchen.

"Tonight we're having 'adventure stew'," he laughed, and Yuuma groaned out loud.

"Tou-chan!"

"What's that?" Ryoga asked. Everyone was smiling now, and only he wasn't in on the joke, and it felt awkward and mean, seeing a family smile together. He could hear Rio's voice in his head, asking if she was really not good enough, and he forced himself to look happy again.

Rio wouldn't understand, though. Even though they were only three minutes apart, he'd always shouldered the burden of adult things for her. That was his job, as the elder brother, whether by three minutes or three decades.

"He just throws whatever he finds in the fridge into a pot," Mirai sighed. "I guess there's nothing to be done."

"Takeout again," Yuuma agreed.

"Pizza!" Akari called from her office.

There was a silence that went on, until Ryoga realized he was meant to have filled it, but it was too late; they were being told to sit down, now, and Kazuma came out of the kitchen and joined them. Mirai poured him a drink and he drank it with a muffled thanks.

"So, how was school?"

"I fell asleep again."

"Yuuma," Mirai chided.

"More importantly, how were your duels?" Kazuma asked. He leaned forward eagerly.

Yuuma launched into a play-by-play of his duel against Tetsuo, which he had won, while Ryoga listened. It was interesting, to hear Yuuma tell the story, because it was different from the way Ryoga had experienced watching it. Ryoga sometimes cringed on Yuuma's behalf when he made an error, but Yuuma brushed them off as hiccups and got excited over every card he'd played.

He stayed silent as the conversation went on. It was warm, and kind, and suffocating. He had no memories like these. His days in school had always ended with him and Rio home alone, making dinner together, bugging each other about their homework, falling quietly asleep in separate rooms. Some nights Rio was at a friend's place and he went through his routine without ever saying a word. He wondered if his parents would be proud of his answers, if they were around to ask him things.

Yuuma asked him something directly, then, and Ryoga blurted out something in response, and Yuuma grinned and threw an arm over his shoulder.

"Isn't this great? I really wanted you to meet my parents and—"

"Yes, I get it, Yuuma, it's great that _your_ parents are alive," Ryoga snapped. The words seemed to echo around the room as the smile dropped off of Yuuma's face. His face felt hot as he realized that everyone was staring at him, Mirai and Kazuma and Akari standing the doorway behind them, and he was furious – at them, at himself, at everything.

He got up and stormed out, letting the door slam hard behind him. He stood there on the front steps.

Humiliating, hot tears poured down his face. He'd just been an asshole to his only real friend for absolutely no reason, even though Yuuma had at great personal risk elected to ignore the fact that Ryoga was technically on the other side and his enemy and a shitty friend, and had come after him and nearly died bringing him back and never, ever once expressed any anger that he'd been too obsessed with his identity crisis to help him while things collapsed around him.

He fumbled for his keys.

"Wait," Mirai said behind him.

He froze, expecting a scolding, or…something. Instead, Mirai reached out and pulled him into a tight hug, the way she'd hugged Yuuma when he came home, and sighed.

"He means well," she murmured. "I'm sorry. We were so excited to finally meet you, after everything Yuuma has said…we forgot our manners."

Listening to her apologize to him was a thousand times worse than her being angry.

But her embrace was warm and comforting.

"Shark?"

Mirai let him go. She smiled down at him before leaving him alone with Yuuma, who was ashamedly staring down at the ground.

He bowed sloppily. "Sorry. I got so excited about you coming over that I forgot…" He trailed off. "I just thought, if you came and had dinner, it'd be like you were part of my family…"

Ryoga was certain, in that moment, that his blush was visible all the way in Astral World.

"It's fine." He mumbled. Yuuma took that as an apology, and lunged at him, throwing his arms around him so hard that they nearly both fell down the stairs. Yuuma was warm, too, but in a different way, and it was a good thing that it was dark, if only so that Yuuma wouldn't see how ridiculously happy he was about a stupid hug from his stupid…friend.

Something exploded inside. Loudly.

The Tsukumos watched from the living room as Shark took over their kitchen.

"What is he making?" Yuuma asked.

"What do we even have?" Akari asked. "Our last grocery list consisted of vinegar and ketchup."

"It's very kind of him to offer to make us dinner," Mirai said.

They all fell silent as Shark's hand transformed, turning grey and purple and clawed, and he punctured the bottom of a lemon before crushing it in his fist so that a stream of juice shot out of the bottom and into the pot. He tossed the used-up lemon into the trash, shook his hand out – it melted back into flesh – and he continued cooking.

Vegetables were chopped. He rolled some chicken that he had dug out in spices and threw it in a pan. Yuuma hadn't even seen him touch rice, but a bowl of it appeared on the table. There were mouth-watering smells coming from the kitchen, and he considering going in and offering to taste.

His hand still stung from his last attempt – Shark, like his grandmother, favored smacking his hand with a wooden spoon – and he decided it was safer to wait.

After they had come inside and found that adventure stew had ended in disaster (again), they'd all stood around and argued about takeout. Shark had just stood there, quietly, and Yuuma, not wanting him to feel left out, had asked him how he and Rio decided where they should order food from. Maybe that was why they'd had a hundred sibling squabble duels?

"Rio and I never get food delivered."

"Then what do you eat?"

"I cook." Shark replied.

And since Shark was the only one who could – Yuuma wasn't even allowed near the stove after the last fiasco, Akari inevitably got distracted and ended up leaving the food half-finished and rotting, Mirai always gave everyone food poisoning, and Kazuma liked to ignore the recipes, at his own peril – he'd offered to make them dinner.

And before he'd even started, he'd cleaned up Kazuma's mess.

Shark had been hurt, earlier, and Yuuma had missed it, caught up in the excitement of finally getting to show his awesome friend to his parents. He'd forgotten, he thought, ashamed, that Shark would be missing his parents, because he wanted Shark to finally get to come over and eat dinner with them and laugh at his dad's adventure stories and sleep in his room. So when Shark had offered to cook, even though Mirai had protested because Shark was a guest, Yuuma had begged her to let him. If Shark were going to cook, like he did with his family, maybe it would make him feel like he was in Yuuma's family, and he'd finally enjoy himself.

"I don't understand." Akari said. "If Ryoga is this responsible, how did he get stuck hanging out with you?"

"Hey!"

"It's done." Shark, hands encased in over mitts, set the last steaming serving bowl on the table. He tossed them onto the counter. "Yuuma, set the table."

Yuuma wanted to protest, but he was a hundred percent sure that Shark would gleefully deny him food if he even tried. So he grabbed some bowls and some chopsticks and threw everything onto the table as fast as he could, eying the meal as he did so. There was so much food! Shark had even made dessert.

"Let's eat!"

"Thank you for cooking, Ryoga," Kazuma said. "I'm sorry that you didn't get to experience adventure stew!"

"I'm not."

They dug in. Yuuma wished that he had more hands, so that he could feed himself everything at once; there was soup and rice and stir-fry and tomatoes that didn't taste nasty and some kind of chocolate banana cake thing. Beside him, Akari drank her bowl of soup without pause.

When she drained the last drop, she reached out across the table and grabbed Shark's arm, stopping him mid-bite.

"Ryoga," she said seriously. "Please marry my useless brother."

"What?"

"Nee-chan!"

"Shut up, Yuuma, I can't believe you've wanted this long to invite him over."

"I'm not old enough to get married!"

"So if you were, there'd be no complaints?" Akari asked. Yuuma yelped and nearly choked on his next bite of food. Now his sister was embarrassing him in front of Shark! If she kept it up, he might never get to eat this food again.

Shark was turning red across the table.

"Now, now, Akari. Let you brother confess his feelings in his own time."

"Yeah!" Yuuma agreed, and he went back to eating as much as possible. The cake that Shark had made was so good that he could have eaten the entire thing by himself, and if Shark hadn't refused to let him take half a cake as a serving, he might have. It occurred to him, halfway through the gooey, fluffy piece, that there was something weird about what his mother had said.

"This is excellent food, though." Mirai mused out loud. "Akari does have a point."

"If I married him his appetite would bankrupt me." Shark snorted. Yuuma looked away from his plate.

For the first time, Shark was smiling. A real smile, not that face he made when he was crushing his opponents into the ground.

"Yes! All my kattobingu paid off!"

Everyone looked at him, and Yuuma grinned.

"You finally smiled," he said, and Shark ducked his head. He was still smiling, though, behind his hair, and Yuuma dug into his cake with great satisfaction.

The credits rolled.

Ryoga was the only one awake. Akari was asleep on Kazuma's left, Mirai on his right, all three of them slumped against one another on the couch. Somehow Yuuma had curled up on his side, his head on Ryoga's knee, and he was snoring softly.

There had been nights like this, before, with his parents, where he and Rio curled up in their laps. Ancient festivals where his parents had ushered him into bed personally instead of sending a servant, at dawn after nights of revelry and ritual. Once a year he and Rio watched the Shark Week marathon religiously.

He tugged at the fang around his neck and flipped open the hidden catch. Even in the dim light he could see his parents' smiling faces, frozen in time just days before they'd vanished forever. His mother's smile looked like Mirai's smile.

The Tsukumos were kind.

"I don't know what to do." He whispered. It felt silly, talking to them – he'd broken himself of the habit so long before – but he wanted to say these words aloud. "I just…I don't always…want to be alone…"

There was no answer.

Yuuma rolled over, smashing his face into Ryoga's thigh.

"I guess even if I wanted to be, this idiot would come find me and drag me back," he murmured. He closed the locket and let it fall back against his chest, the cool metal reassuring. His eyelids were heavy, and he let himself fall asleep.


End file.
